


Tony Stark's Adventures in AI

by JuneSong13



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Fluffy-ish?, Gen, Short, i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-21
Updated: 2019-05-21
Packaged: 2020-03-09 07:11:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18912082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JuneSong13/pseuds/JuneSong13
Summary: "JARVIS is the result of ten years of practice. Tony’s first attempts at intelligent AI are all named after classical writers, HOMER, PLATO, and VIRGIL, and they’re… well, they’re functional. There’s a sort of elegance to VIRGIL’s function in particular, and HOMER’s code is beautifully organized, but Tony’d used the three of them only briefly before moving on to better things. Namely, FRIDAY and HELEN. Those two are downright beautiful, and Tony even likes the particular quirks of FRIDAY’s functionality, but neither of them feel… right."--I watched Endgame and felt sad, so I'm posting this to make me happy again.





	Tony Stark's Adventures in AI

**Author's Note:**

> So I kinda wrote this last September and then dropped it. Then I watched Endgame, and I needed to feel happy, so I went trawling back into my folder of work-in-progress fics and decided this needed posting.
> 
> A brief warning: I have only the most basic understanding of coding, software engineering, robotics, and mechanical engineering. As in, I have tried many times to learn how to code, but I've yet to find someone who can explain it to me in a way that my brain can actually process, and I've never actually learned mechanical engineering. If I made any mistakes with terminology, please do let me know!

The funny part is that the press assumes the actual nuts and bolts were the hardest part of building DUM-E. _How long did it take for you to build it?_ They ask. _What parts did you use and why?_

Tony would roll his eyes if Howard wouldn’t have his head for it, because the physical components of DUM-E were hilariously easy to put together. A couple of servos, some steel struts, a motherboard, and a little bit of wiring here and there— Tony could’ve put it together when he was six. No, the part that Tony slaved over, the part that all the actual smart people are so interested in, is the coding.

Oh, god, the _coding_. The scientific world is blown away by the idea that Tony has constructed a fully functional AI— which is, admittedly, the only reason why he wins that competition, because the code he used to create said AI is hideous. He starts working on You entirely because he’s too damn sentimental to clean up DUM-E’s coding for the first few weeks and wants to prove it to himself that he can make a better-looking AI code. He makes Butterfingers because he likes three better than two.

Then he moves on to bigger and better things. That is, an actually _intelligent_ artificial intelligence. Because, for all the tidiness of You and Butterfingers’ codes, they’re still as dumb as the metal and plastic that make up their hardware.

JARVIS is the result of ten years of practice. Tony’s first attempts at intelligent AI are all named after classical writers, HOMER, PLATO, and VIRGIL, and they’re… well, they’re functional. There’s a sort of elegance to VIRGIL’s function in particular, and HOMER’s code is beautifully organized, but Tony’d used the three of them only briefly before moving on to better things. Namely, FRIDAY and HELEN. Those two are downright beautiful, and Tony even likes the particular quirks of FRIDAY’s functionality, but neither of them feel… right.

Then one morning, he wakes up with a splitting hangover and the skeleton of a new AI, and this— this feels right. The entire time he works on the newest one, Tony can’t help but think that there’s something familiar about the code he’s writing– something about the ruthless efficiency, the specific learning patterns– until the day he finishes the learning program, finally gets it to run seamlessly, and—

Oh, god, it’s Jarvis.

The realization sends Tony flying back to the code, throwing together a language and voice matrix and finally completing the identity class before stepping back and taking it all in.

Just A Rather Very Intelligent System, or JARVIS for short, is perfect. Tony can’t think of anything better to run his house than a tribute to old Edwin. He uploads JARVIS to the workshop servers almost immediately.

 _Loading, loading, loading…_ and then JARVIS comes online for the first time.

“Sir?”

Jesus fuck, that _voice_ – he hasn’t heard that voice in _years_ , and it makes his eyes burn and his throat swell.

“JARVIS,” Tony says, and he’s grinning even as his vision blurs. “J— It’s nice to hear you.”

“It is very nice to hear you too, sir. Might I suggest you get some sleep? Even you have not yet designed a method to circumvent sleep.”

That makes Tony laugh. “God, I missed you,” he says, and even though, to JARVIS, it’s absolute gibberish—

“Of course, sir,” the AI says.


End file.
